A Newsletter of Humorous Writing

For August 16-22, 2023

Hello and welcome to A Newsletter of Humorous Writing, a roundup of the week's finest short humor pieces and funny articles, and a celebration of the fantastic writers who wrote them. This week we used a thesaurus to come up with three worse names for corn flakes: 1. Corn membranes. 2. Corn sheets. 3. Corn skins. Don't use any of these as a name for your cereal!

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What We Enjoyed This Week

Ticketmaster Adds New Feature Where Two Burly Guys Come To Your House and Shake You Upside Down by Your Ankles by James Knapp (The Hard Times) The different descriptions of the "two burly guys" are so good ("two hairy dudes wearing matching grease-stained, short sleeve jumpsuits"), and we love the choice to include a quote from Jocko, one of the burly fellas.

Common Workplace Expressions That Are Actually Quite Problematic by Forest Abruzzo (McSweeney's) The target of the satire (exploitative corporations and the horrors of late-stage capitalism) is crystal-clear, which is essential for a piece like this to work. Forest also wisely makes sure that once the piece switches over to overtly, bluntly problematic expressions, those expressions are nicely stylized and heightened, so that they never feel like a transcription of something disturbing or upsetting that someone might actually say.

So You’re Bored Enough to Read the Back of the Package by Joanna Borns (Points in Case) This piece has some great heightening and a great tone. "If caring about the quality of the food you put in your mouth is dumb, then we’re just big, stupid potato-loving idiots for caring about our customers." Also the name "Jorkelson" is so delightfully specific--that's the kind of small detail that makes a big difference.
 

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An Old Favorite

This week's Old Favorite is a Brian Agler Selection (TM)--a piece whose accompanying note was written by Brian--from Newsletter #45.

Truly Incredible Bill Murray Sightings by Seth Reiss (The New Yorker) Friend of the Show, Seth Reiss, does it again. This is classic Seth Reiss piece if there ever was one. A simple premise devolves into something completely demented. Like Bill Murray himself, this piece is very funny, a little dark, and once served me a shot in an Austin dive bar.

Do you have an Old Favorite of your own? Let us know by filling out this form and we may run your pick in a future edition of the newsletter.

 

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Updates From Your Hosts and Friends of the Show

Luke's got another edition of his advanced humor writing workshop starting on September 9th at 3PM Eastern! Luke usually does his Saturday advanced classes at noon, so if you're on the West Coast and you prefer to have a slower start to your mornings (or if you're on the East Coast and prefer getting a very VERY slow start in the morning) you won't want to miss snagging a spot in this section.
 

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Other Humorous Writing News

And in strike news: This week, the WGA strike became the third-longest writers strike in history. Most people support the strikes! The AMPTP has stopped completely ignoring the WGA and has met to talk, but a reminder: the only news on the state of negotiations that is really reliable is that coming from the Guilds. From this WGA update from yesterday's meeting, it seems like AMPTP broke its negotiating silence to play games: "...this wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. This was a meeting to get us to cave." They're leaking things to the trades, and seem to be using sock puppet accounts to push their talking points on social media. The WGA West released a report entitled "The New Gatekeepers: How Disney, Amazon, and Netflix Will Take Over Media" that lays out the current monopolization of Hollywood, and what anti-trust action is needed to counter it. The LA Times had an interesting interview with Laura Blum-Smith, WGA West’s research and public policy director, about the report, too. A judge ruled that art generated by predictive programming isn't copyrightable, which could affect how the studios feel about it. 

If you're looking to support striking workers from WGA and SAG, as well as Unite Here 11 hotel workers, Teamsters, and IATSE members, here's a great list of mutual aid funds that could use your donations!

There's lots of info and ways to show solidarity on the WGA's Strike Hub!

(A few of you have shared links and updates from the picket line with us--thanks! If there's anything you'd like us to share, a link, or a resource, or your personal thoughts or anecdotes from the strike, please reply to this email!)
 

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See you next week!

@lukevburns & @jamesfolta

We started this newsletter with our dear friend Brian Agler, and we want it to always honor his memory and his love of all things humorous. You can find our newsletter tribute to Brian here.

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